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Obama’s war on journalism and free expression

This commentary also appears at the Huffington Post.

Kudos to David Carr of the New York Times for shining a light on an issue that doesn’t attract nearly the attention that it should: the Obama administration’s abuse of the Espionage Act, which in turn has led to a virtual war on journalism and free expression.

As Carr notes, the Espionage Act, approved in 1917 during the hysteria of World War I, was used three times before President Obama took office in 2009 — and six times during his presidency.

We live in a dangerous era, and there have been prosecutions with which it may be hard to disagree. Carr cites the case of Bradley Manning, who’s been charged with stealing national-security documents that are at the heart of the WikiLeaks disclosures.

But Carr also writes that leak prosecutions often seem to be aimed more at punishing people for embarrassing the government than for genuinely damaging national security. In a particularly ironic case, a former CIA officer named John Kiriakou has been charged with leaking the names of agents involved in interrogating terrorism suspects. Carr points out that “none of the individuals who engaged in or authorized the waterboarding of terror suspects have been prosecuted.”

(More about the Kiriakou case from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Kiriakou has denied the charges.)

Kudos, too, to Jake Tapper of ABC News, whose confrontation with White House press secretary Jay Carney is the hook Carr uses to delve into the issue. A fuller account of Tapper and Carney’s exchange can be found here. Here’s Tapper responding to Carney’s praise for the journalist Marie Colvin, killed in Syria last week:

How does that square with the fact that this administration has been so aggressively trying to stop aggressive journalism in the United States by using the Espionage Act to take whistleblowers to court? You’re — currently I think that you’ve invoked it the sixth time, and before the Obama administration, it had only been used three times in history. You’re — this is the sixth time you’re suing a CIA officer for allegedly providing information in 2009 about CIA torture. Certainly that’s something that’s in the public interest of the United States. The administration is taking this person to court. There just seems to be disconnect here. You want aggressive journalism abroad; you just don’t want it in the United States.

I suspect Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have gotten a pass from many liberals because they believe a Republican president would be even worse on such matters. The fact is, though, that no president has been more aggressive than Obama in prosecuting suspected leakers.

And given the way the media work, it’s no surprise that they’ve said little, since the heart of what they do is respond to accusations. The storyline being promoted by Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich is that Obama is weak on national security, so they’re certainly not going to criticize the president for being too tough on leakers. Thus, no story.

When the government wants to take suspected leakers to court, it inevitably demands that journalists reveal their confidential sources. There is no constitutionally recognized right for journalists to protect their sources, and no federal shield law, which means that such cases have a considerable chilling effect on tough reporting.

In 2006, “Frontline” interviewed Mark Corallo, who was director of public affairs for George W. Bush’s first attorney general, John Ashcroft. In this transcript, you’ll see that Corallo, with the support of Ashcroft — not generally thought of as a friend of the First Amendment — approved only one subpoena for a journalist out of “dozens” that were requested. Corallo continued:

I can’t tell you about that case. It was a national-security case. I believed, after long reflection, that it did put innocent people’s lives in danger, our allies, people in other countries who would be subject to terrorist attacks. The case was so egregious; it was such a horrible instance of unethical behavior by a journalist to boot.

I hope Tapper’s tough questioning and Carr’s column are the beginning of a genuine attempt to hold the Obama White House to account for its repressive policies.

A solid debut by Christiane Amanpour

Not long after Tim Russert’s death, I realized that my aversion to George Stephanopoulos was not nearly as deep-seated as my aversion to David Gregory. So I switched from “Meet the Press” to “This Week” and haven’t looked back. Among other things, “This Week” regular George Will is a great entertainer, and where else other than the New York Times can you get a regular dose of Paul Krugman?

Stephanopoulos, of course, decamped for morning television months ago, never to be seen again — at least not by me. Today, at long last, marked the much-anticipated debut of his permanent replacement, former CNN foreign correspondent Christiane Amanpour. I don’t think the occasion warrants a lot of analysis. But surely a little is in order. A few points.

1. I don’t watch “This Week”; rather, I listen to the podcast. So if there were any changes to the set, I wouldn’t know. For what it’s worth, I thought Amanpour, her guests and her panelists all sounded fine.

2. It was a good first week for Amanpour. She had two major gets, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. If Amanpour’s questions failed to elicit any major news, neither did she embarrass herself. In any event, with rare exceptions, top government officials are going to say what they’re going to say regardless of what they are asked.

3. Though “This Week” seemed pretty much the same as it always has, Amanpour did shake things up a bit, as Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid joined the roundtable from Spain. Over time, I’m hoping that Amanpour turns the entire format upside-down, eschewing political chit-chat for real substance. Perhaps this was one small step in that direction.

4. Jake Tapper deserves kudos for the way he handled “This Week” as a fill-in host the past several months. By taking a few chances (especially by embracing of New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen’s suggestion that he add fact-checking to the show), Tapper demonstrated that there’s still some life left in the old format.

If, for some reason, Amanpour doesn’t work out, or if ABC News decides to use her elsewhere, then Tapper would be a natural — and I think viewers would accept him far more readily than they would have before his stint as a substitute.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

A cheap shot thrown at Diane Sawyer

Someone will probably try to blame this on the low journalistic standards of them there internets. But the perpetrator of today’s insult against Diane Sawyer — someone I had not previously considered defending — has worked for the Wall Street Journal and written for the New York Times and other publications. And her editor is the legendary Tina Brown.

But not to back into this. According to Rebecca Dana of Brown’s Daily Beast, Charles Gibson was “livid” when he learned that Sawyer would replace him as anchor of ABC’s “World News.” Here’s the relevant paragraph:

Gibson didn’t do interviews this time, but said in a statement that his “heart is full of gratitude.” Although they worked closely for more than a decade, Gibson makes no direct reference to Sawyer in the statement, and a source close to the departing anchor described him as “livid” that she’s succeeding him. An ABC executive called this “nonsense,” and Westin said he told Gibson from their earliest conversations about his retirement that Sawyer would be his replacement.

That’s it. There is nothing else in Dana’s longish piece to suggest that Gibson has a problem with Sawyer. And, as Westin says, there was really no other logical replacement (George Stephanopoulos?), so Gibson couldn’t have been surprised. Dana has one anonymous source who claims Gibson is “livid,” and another who says it’s “nonsense.” What is the value of this bit of gossip?

I realize that the source “close” to Gibson may in fact be Gibson himself. But since the reader has no way of knowing, so what? Moreover, we have no idea why Gibson might be livid. Is it because he thinks Sawyer lacks sufficient gravitas? Or does he suspect her of stealing pencils out of his desk drawer?

Sawyer comes off as quite solicitous of Gibson in Howard Kurtz’s account for the Washington Post, reportedly asking ABC News president David Westin, “Can’t we talk Charlie into staying?” Kurtz also writes:

The friendship between Sawyer and Gibson — who last worked together moderating a health-care forum with President Obama — dates to 1998, when both agreed to fill in at the floundering “GMA” in a temporary assignment that became permanent.

Kurtz is too good a reporter to have used the word “friendship” if he’d picked up any buzz that there was a rift between Sawyer and Gibson.

Sawyer will do a perfectly fine job of anchoring the evening newscast. She wouldn’t have been my choice, given her years as a tabloid sob sister. But, then again, I’m not in the demographic for the network newscasts: I’m only 53, about two decades too young.

As for Rebecca Dana’s gossipy account, it’s a cheap shot. Even if we later learn there’s something to it, her claim that Gibson was “livid” is based on one anonymous source, with no context or explanation. Not good enough.

ABC and anthrax: Case (almost) closed?

I want to expand a bit on what I wrote yesterday about ABC News reporter Brian Ross’ interview with TVNewser. I think Ross largely met the challenge about his anthrax reporting posed earlier this week by Jay Rosen and Dan Gillmor, even if he didn’t answer their three questions point by point.

To back up a bit: ABC News reported in October 2001 that three, and then four, anonymous sources were claiming the anthrax sent to then-Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle’s office contained a substance — bentonite — that marked it as being of Iraqi origin. In several of ABC’s stories, it was noted that the White House had denied there was any such connection. Nevertheless, some critics, most notably Glenn Greenwald of Salon, have suggested that this may have been a diversionary tactic, as the notion that Saddam Hussein was trying to poison us was certainly in the administration’s interests in building a case for war.

Then, on Nov. 1, Ross appeared on the air with another anthrax report. This time he said something more specific (quoted from TVNewser and verified on LexisNexis):

The White House said that despite initial test results which we reported suggesting the presence of a chemical called bentonite, a trademark of the Iraqi weapons program, a further chemical analysis has ruled that out. The White House says there are chemical additives in that anthrax including one called silica.

As Greenwald noted yesterday, there was little reason at the time to think this was anything other than yet another White House denial, and that ABC was sticking by its story. (I’ve read the full transcript of the Nov. 1 report, and I agree.) But Ross’ comments to TVNewser make it reasonably clear that the network was, in fact, retracting its story. Not only was the White House denying the anthrax contained bentonite, he says now, but so were his anonymous sources, whom he has described as current and former government scientists. From TVNewser:

Ross says he was told it was not bentonite not just by the White House, but by the same sources from the original report. But by not telling viewers, some have questioned whether Ross’ sources were simply lying to ABC News to begin building a case against Iraq.

“It wasn’t meant to read that way,” said Ross. “From my point of view it gave national credibility to have on the record attribution and not some anonymous scientists.”

And yet, as Greenwald and others have pointed out, Ross’ stories reporting there was an Iraq-anthrax connection relied entirely on “some anonymous sources.” Somehow we were supposed to know that ABC had shifted from We’re sticking by our story despite White House denials to We’re retracting our story because of White House denials. ABC should have made it clear at the time that its anonymous sources had changed their minds, and that the network was retracting its story.

Although I have no reason to doubt Ross, I still think ABC News needs to grapple with this in a more transparent, systemic way. If Ross’ account is correct, then his anonymous sources were acting in good faith and there’s no need to expose their identities. But we deserve to know how ABC came to retract a significant scoop without anyone quite realizing the retraction had taken place.

Rosen is not mollified in the least; Gillmor takes a more measured view, though he, too, is unsatisfied.

What we’re all keeping an eye on now is the unfolding story about Bruce Ivins, the Army scientist who committed suicide last week just as it seemed that the authorities were closing in. The FBI’s case against Ivins as the sole anthrax attacker seems pretty persuasive, even though there are some obvious holes in it. We’ll have to see how well it holds up.

ABC’s non-correction correction

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald writes that ABC News now claims that it corrected its story on the Iraq-anthrax connection way back on Nov. 1, 2001.

But as Greenwald notes, all ABC’s Brian Ross did on that date was say that the White House disputed the network’s reports that some of the anthrax could be traced to Iraq. That’s not new: ABC had included the White House’s denials in every one of its stories. Nor, according to Greenwald’s research, did ABC ever retract its stories or say that they were wrong.

Not good enough. ABC still needs to make a full accounting as to what went wrong.

More: Ross’ statements to TVNewser bring us closer. It may be that ABC’s big mistake was not making it clear at the time that it was retracting its stories. If that’s what it was doing.

And by the way: I should make it clear that I’m feeding on Jay Rosen’s posts on Twitter.

Anthrax, Iraq and ABC News

ABC News has some explaining to do. The suicide of Bruce Ivins, a government scientist who’s now being described as the principal suspect in the anthrax attacks that followed 9/11 (not that there’s a whole lot of evidence), has prompted renewed scrutiny of ABC’s sensational claim in October 2001 that the anthrax had been traced to Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.

At the time, ABC reporter Brian Ross said that “four separate and well-placed sources” had told the network that the anthrax sent to then-Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle contained traces of bentonite, evidence that the anthrax was of Iraqi origin. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, who’s been busting ABC’s chops for years now, presents all the background of this miserable episode here, here and here.

For ABC, the best-case scenario is that its reporting was simply wrong, for whatever reason. (Greenwald notes that Ross reported the Bush administration’s denials at the time.) The worst-case scenario? Government sources deliberately used the network to make the public believe that Saddam was poisoning us with anthrax. The timeline Greenwald presents is disturbing, as it suggests the possibility that a scare campaign about anthrax was unfolding even before the first attack.

There are many questions and few answers. So today I’d like to lend my name to an effort being put together by New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen and Center for Citizen Media director Dan Gillmor to pressure ABC and Ross into answering three overarching questions:

1. Sources who are granted confidentiality give up their rights when they lie or mislead the reporter. Were you lied to or misled by your sources when you reported several times in 2001 that anthrax found in domestic attacks came from Iraq or showed signs of Iraqi involvement?

2. It now appears that the attacks were of domestic origin and the anthrax came from within U.S. government facilities. This leads us to ask you: who were the “four well-placed and separate sources” who falsely told ABC News that tests conducted at Fort Detrick had found the presence of bentonite in the anthrax sent to Sen. Tom Daschle, causing ABC News to connect the attacks to Iraq in multiple reports over a five day period in October, 2001?

3. A substantially false story that helps make the case for war by raising fears about enemies abroad attacking the United States is released into public debate because of faulty reporting done by ABC News. How that happened and who was responsible is itself a major story of public interest. What is ABC News doing to re-report these events, to figure out what went wrong and to correct the record for the American people who were misled?

A couple of caveats.

First, Greenwald tries hard to argue that ABC’s reporting contributed in some significant way in building public support for the war against Iraq. I don’t buy it. By the fall of 2002, when the White House began its final push for war, it was all about Saddam’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, including nukes, and his supposed ties to Al Qaeda.

Second, there’s a possibility that ABC can give a reasonably full accounting without naming its confidential sources. Despite the evidence Greenwald has amassed, there’s a chance that ABC’s sources were acting in good faith. If that’s the case, then they shouldn’t be outed.

Still, this was a terrible moment in a series of terrible moments for the media. I doubt that a vigilant press could have stopped the war. But we’ll never know, because too many news organizations poured gasoline on the White House’s glowing embers.

I hope Ross and company at ABC News are saying nothing for the moment because they’re looking into what went wrong right now. But, as Greenwald observes, they’ve known their reporting was wrong for several years now but have done little. Let’s hope public pressure leads to a different outcome this time.